Consumer Reports to Target shoppers: Replace your card

People should replace debit and credit cards whose numbers were recently stolen from Target, even if fraudulent charges have yet to show up, Consumer Reports says.

Replacing the cards is the easiest and most certain way to preclude fraud and it's especially important to protect debit cards, said Jeff Blyskal, senior editor with Consumer Reports Money.

"If you have an unauthorized charge on your debit card, which is attached to your checking account, it can cause a lot of problems," he said. "Maybe you wrote a check for the rent on that account and now all of sudden there's not enough money there and the check bounces or your mortgage or your credit card payment bounces."

Card issuers and Target say people will not be held responsible for fraudulent charges. One of the nation's biggest banks, Chase, has indicated it will replace all debit cards whose numbers were included in the Target data breach. But so far, Chase appears to be the only bank taking such sweeping action.

Consumers can get new debit cards without closing checking accounts, Blyskal said.

Consumers with cards that may have been compromised should also file fraud alerts and security freezes on their credit reports at all three national credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), he added.

"A security freeze on your credit report basically blocks it out except to creditors you already do business with," Blyskal said. "A fraud alert will alert creditors in case the bad guys want to use the information that was stolen to open up a new account."

He says identity theft services are not worthwhile and people can protect themselves quite well by taking precautionary steps on their own.

Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, has asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to investigate the Target data theft and explore ways to reduce the effect on consumers.

Crooks, said Blyskal, "will be patient and they go use these cards a couple of months from now when you might have forgotten about this whole thing."